Sometimes translating things is a great way to get a feel for conlangs. I’ve been thinking more about mine over the past few days as I work through the solution I’ve finally found to finishing a novella about forest shrines and restless dead. That novella has been unfinished for a while, so I’m happy I figured out what the ending needed to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I found some Heraclitus \u2014 \u1f18\u03b4\u03b9\u03b6\u03b7\u03c3\u03ac\u03bc\u03b7\u03bd \u1f10\u03bc\u03b5\u03c9\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd. I searched myself.<\/em> To develop this into a conlang (rather than engaging in translation telephone), I checked the definitions for each of the words in a Greek-English dictionary so I could get a feel for whether the words had additional nuance. The word \u1f10\u03bc\u03b5\u03c9\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd is masculine, referring in the translation to oneself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Narahji word for to search<\/em> is nuadit<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nuadssa\u1ecbm\u1ecbrru.<\/strong> I searched myself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Nuadssa\u1ecbm\u1ecbrru omgoros. <\/strong>I searched myself.<\/em> Emphasis on depth (goros<\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u1ecb is the vowel in SAE bit<\/em>; i is the vowel in beet<\/em>. It’s always challenging to pick diacritics when a conlang has more vowels than English does. Narahji is OVS, and it puts prefixes on particles that serve as adjectives and adverbs. In this case, goros<\/strong> is linked to the verb with the prefix om-<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Tveshi, the word to search<\/em> is ahuimoshait<\/strong>.<\/em> This is the verb to find<\/em> (amoshait<\/strong>) with the prefix ui-<\/strong> added. Tveshi, unlike Narahji, is the familiar-to-us SVO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n M\u0117 m\u0117is uimosham.<\/strong> I searched myself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u0117 is the vowel in SAE bet<\/em>; where it appears marked before another vowel, they are separated by a glottal stop. End-of-word \u0117 is always marked to encourage pronunciation, as in pesh\u0117<\/em>, pronounced peh-sheh (\u02c8p\u025b.\u0283\u025b).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both the Narahji and Tveshi examples rely on reflexive constructions using standard pronouns; there’s no gender in either Tveshi or Narahji pronouns, and it’s not relevant to generate a clarifying secondary sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One could provide that distinction in Classical Atarahi with its status marker emphatic\/reflexive pronouns, but that is usually not done. The verb here is moban<\/strong>, to search<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mobikuset tom. <\/strong>I searched myself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mobikuset u\u1e63\u0113ta. <\/strong>I searched myself.<\/em> Could also be, Mobikuset u\u1e63\u0113ta tom.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Here, u\u1e63\u0113ta<\/em> (the \u1e63 is a retroflex \u201csh\u201d sound, meaning the tongue is curled back; the \u0113 is a long \u025b), the honorific pronoun for scholars, is used \u2014 this is actually plausible given that Heraclitus was a philosopher. There are only special gendered honorifics for men and women who are in charge of gendered initiation rites, in which case one could write mobikuset neris<\/em> or mobikuset neris tom<\/em> for a man. This is likely not applicable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hope you enjoyed this brief conlang doodle. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes translating things is a great way to get a feel for conlangs. I’ve been thinking more about mine over the past few days as I work through the solution I’ve finally found to finishing a novella about forest shrines and restless dead. That novella has been unfinished for a while, so I’m happy I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A conlang doodle.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[11,5,6,7],"class_list":["post-633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-classical-atarahi","tag-conlangs","tag-narahji","tag-tveshi"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9qEhO-ad","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":162,"url":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/2018\/06\/17\/when-a-librarian-writes-conlangs\/","url_meta":{"origin":633,"position":0},"title":"When a Librarian Writes Conlangs","author":"kaye","date":"17 June 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I saw a question on Twitter that was posted on Metafilter about words for librarian in \"geek languages,\" which was retweeted with a #conlang hashtag. Right now, I'm not sure if the original poster intended this to be mentioned in the conlang communities. I mean, there are popular geek conlangs,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"classical atarahi\"","block_context":{"text":"classical atarahi","link":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/tag\/classical-atarahi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34,"url":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/2017\/11\/30\/linguistic-beauty-can-be-hard-to-podcast\/","url_meta":{"origin":633,"position":1},"title":"Linguistic Beauty Can Be Hard to Podcast","author":"kaye","date":"30 November 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"To conclude, we believe views about the beauty and ugliness of languages and dialects are built on cultural norms, pressures and social connotations. [\u2026] Most listeners know of linguistic varieties that they do not like, but we should appreciate that these feelings are highly subjective and have no basis in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"conlangs\"","block_context":{"text":"conlangs","link":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/tag\/conlangs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27,"url":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/2017\/11\/29\/narahji-noun-classes-insults\/","url_meta":{"origin":633,"position":2},"title":"Insults in Narahji: The Noun Class Edition","author":"kaye","date":"29 November 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"(A partial repost from Tumblr with some new content.) The Narahji spoken in\u00a0Epiphany is not always internally consistent because it's the Narahji of a changing time. Salus is navigating a complex world of formal, standardized Narahji and informal Narahji. In 1865 Standard Count, the year\u00a0Epiphany takes place, language activists are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"conlangs\"","block_context":{"text":"conlangs","link":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/tag\/conlangs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":112,"url":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/2018\/02\/03\/reflections-on-writing-in-2017\/","url_meta":{"origin":633,"position":3},"title":"Reflections on Writing in 2017","author":"kaye","date":"3 February 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Writing-wise, 2017 was an interesting year. This is the part where I talk about a variety of projects related to writing and constructed languages and what happened over last calendar year (and into January 2018). In 2017 (and January 2018 \u2014 I didn't finish editing a novella until midway through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"writing\"","block_context":{"text":"writing","link":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/tag\/writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":77,"url":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/2017\/12\/05\/notes-on-epiphany-oratory-in-igzarhjenya-languages-and-iturji\/","url_meta":{"origin":633,"position":4},"title":"Notes on Epiphany: Oratory in \u1ecagzarhjenya Languages (and Iturji)","author":"kaye","date":"5 December 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"When I was reading the 56 Hikol piece about Tehjen, I did not render Narahji in the IPA \u2014 although retrospectively, that would have been easier. I would have needed way fewer takes than I had to do to get this right! That piece is written in pre-reform Narahji, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"conlangs\"","block_context":{"text":"conlangs","link":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/tag\/conlangs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45,"url":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/2017\/11\/30\/today-we-feast-tomorrow-we-lexember\/","url_meta":{"origin":633,"position":5},"title":"Today, We Feast; Tomorrow, We #Lexember","author":"kaye","date":"30 November 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Tomorrow is #lexember. I'm not a #NaNoWriMo person because, as an academic librarian, my achievable word count the month I write an academic article column for a science librarian journal is more like 20-30K. I've never understood why #NaNoWriMo is during peak academic output season. This year, my word count\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"conlangs\"","block_context":{"text":"conlangs","link":"https:\/\/www.kayeboesme.com\/pangrammatike\/tag\/conlangs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Tveshi dict example. 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